EGERTON, Michael

A Day’s Journal of a Sponge.

London: Published for the Proprietor, by Rowney & Forster, 1824. Item #02595

The Misadventures of a Regency Free-Loader
Told in Six Beautifully Hand-Colored Aquatint Plates

[EGERTON, Michael]. [A Day’s Journal of a Sponge. By Peter Pasquin. London: Published for the Proprietor, by Rowney & Forster, 1824].

First edition. Oblong folio (10 3/8 x 14 inches; 264 x 351 mm.). Six bright and beautifully hand-colored aquatint plates with interleaves. The plates are unsigned, with imprint: London, Published by W. Egerton, 1824. Bound without the lithographed title. Watermark: J Whatman Turkey Mill 1826.

Bound by Rivière and Son in later red half crushed morocco over red cloth boards. Raised bands. Gilt-lettered compartments. Expertly rebacked with the original spine laid down. An excellent copy.

A work of profound rarity with or without the title; OCLC notes only four copies in institutional holdings. Abbey's copy, as this one, also lacked the titlepage.

These satiric plates with their lengthy droll and witty captions depict the comic misadventures of a pretentious, social striving man about town free-loader, moocher, muzzler, cadger, touch-artist; a Regency Period slacker who is thick as a brick but convinced otherwise. This work has been attributed by Abbey and Houfe to M[ichael]. Egerton, a social caricaturist who worked in London in the 1820s in the manner of George Cruikshank.

The Plates, untitled but each with three-five lines of text that begin:

1. Was stirring with the lark…
2. Feeling one of those pangs…
3. Having returned, & hired a Chaise…
4. Former fears confirmed…
5. Sauntering down Bond Street…
6. Being recovered from the effects…

Abbey, Life, 289. Houfe, p. 294. Prideaux, p. 347.

Price: $2,250.00